


Keep Me Here Forever

by moonmoth (greyvvardenfell)



Series: Fictober 2019 [14]
Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Abusive Parents, F/M, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Inspired by Hades and Persephone (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:54:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23570389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greyvvardenfell/pseuds/moonmoth
Summary: Julian and Reyja as Hades and Persephone
Relationships: Apprentice/Julian Devorak
Series: Fictober 2019 [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1696495
Kudos: 3





	Keep Me Here Forever

**Author's Note:**

> For the Fictober prompt: "I could really eat something."

The storytellers don’t understand why I would choose this, but they never understood me anyway. They never really thought of me in their grand orchestrations of how things should be, only moved me around from place to place like a piece of furniture. I never meant anything to any of them, or to the people who claimed to have my best interests at heart. They never knew me. Not really. 

But why be the throne when you could be the queen that sits upon it?

I wasn’t dancing in a field of flowers under the watchful eyes of Helios that day. I was weeping, collecting a bouquet for a joyous wedding that would never come. My mother would never allow it, holding the humans for ransom with her power under the guise of concern for me. No one would ever be good enough. No one could ever care for me as much as she did.

But he heard me. All the way in Hades, he heard me. He was the only one who came to ask me what was wrong. Tall, pale, red hair ablaze… his kindness was foreign to me. He laughed easily and often, his smile so broad it made me forget, for a moment, the pain in my heart. I didn’t mean to tell him all my woes, but he was so easy to talk to. And he listened. I had never been listened to before. And the righteous anger that boiled up within him had me at its center.

“That isn’t fair,” he hissed, pacing an arc around me. “You deserve better.”

“I don’t have a choice. There’s nothing I can do against her.”

“Maybe not.” Already I found myself leaning into his smiles, my stomach aflutter like I’d never felt before. “But there are things that can be done. Will you let me help you? Please?”

How could I say no? I didn’t want to, and for once, there was someone on my side. So he took me back with him, tearing a hole in the field with the roots of a narcissus. I left the blossom as a parting gift, a final fuck you to my mother, resting on an overturned stone. The flowers I had gathered in grief I threw into the air, letting them fall where they may as we vanished into the earth.

I had never felt anything but the heat of the sun on my skin until then. Beside me in his chariot, even he was cool to the touch, like the rock and earth around us. It was as though I could breathe for the first time; my father may have dominion over the sky, but my mother came from the ground, and it was here I belonged. I knew from the moment the sunlight vanished I would never want to be anywhere else. Perhaps it’s this the storytellers can’t wrap their heads around, why a maiden would want to toil in the darkness for the rest of her life. But they’re wrong on both counts: it isn’t dark if you know where to look, and I didn’t stay a maiden for long.

It must be said that he never pushed. He never hurried me. We moved so fast because we both wanted it. We found something in each other, I think, that neither of us had ever known before. True companionship, that of equals rather than subservients or overseers. And love. Love more than anything. He fought for me when my mother came, tipped off by Hekate, who had seen us thunder past all the crossroads that met underground. She faced him, all threats and bared teeth, and he stood tall against her, black robes billowing with his own power. When she turned on the crocodile tears, he just laughed. He rested his hand on my shoulder, lending me his strength when I stepped forward and told her to leave. She asked what she would do without me, her voice wild with accusation, and I, too, laughed.

“That is none of my concern, mother.” I could almost feel his pride beaming down on me, my new source of sunlight. “Now get out.”

——

Hades is my home now. I am a queen and a goddess, more than I could have ever hoped to be while trapped beneath my mother’s thumb. Every day I wake up beside the love of my life, cradled in his strong arms with his head against mine. He smiles when he sees me, his love a balm to soothe old wounds.

“Good morning, my darling,” he murmurs to me, pressing kisses down my cheek.

“Morning, lovely. How did you sleep?”

“Always better with you.” He hesitates a moment, lingering over my lips, so I wind my fingers into his hair and draw him into me. No matter how short or long the kiss, he breaks away breathless. “Mmm, yes,” he sighs, running his tongue over the places mine just left. “Always better with you.”

“You know, I could eat something,” I say, hooding my eyes as I settle back against his chest.

“Oho? What did you have in mind?”

“Anything that will keep me here forever.”


End file.
